Amount involved in bank frauds halved to Rs 30,252 crore in FY23

The amount involved in bank frauds continue to fall significantly over the years, as FY23 saw 13,520 bank frauds involving Rs 30,252 crore which is almost half of Rs 59,819 crore reported in the previous financial year, according to the recently released annual report of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

There has been a consistent drop in the amount involved in bank frauds over the last few years, according to the report. There was a 55% decline in the amount involved in the total frauds reported during 2021-22 over 2020- 21. Further, proportionately, the decline in the total amount involved in frauds continued during 2022- 23, with a reduction of 49% over 2021-22.

While small value card/internet frauds contributed maximum to the number of frauds reported by the private sector banks, the frauds in public sector banks were mainly in loan portfolio.

An assessment of bank group-wise fraud cases over the last three years indicates that while private sector banks reported maximum number of frauds, public sector banks continued to contribute maximum to the fraud amount during 2022-23

Frauds have occurred predominantly in the category of digital payments (card/internet), in terms of number. However, in terms of value, frauds have been reported primarily in the loan portfolio.

An analysis of the vintage of frauds reported during 2021-22 and 2022-23 shows a significant time-lag between the date of occurrence of a fraud and its detection. The amount involved in frauds that occurred in previous financial years formed 93.7% of the banks frauds reported in 2021-22 in terms of value. Similarly, 94.5% of the frauds reported in 2022-23 by value occurred in previous financial years.

According to the RBI annual report, a Unified Fraud Reporting system for all supervised entities is being implemented as part of the augmented reporting system under the Centralised Information Management System (CIMS) project. Unified returns for SCBs, UCBs and NBFCs have been developed, and are currently under adoption.

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